Yesterday, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket into space, carrying a ballast payload that… just for fun… consisted of a red Tesla Roadster with an empty spacesuit strapped in the front seat. Most people thought this was pretty cool.

There is, perhaps, no better way to appreciate the tragedy of 21st-century global inequality than by watching a billionaire spend $90m launching a $100,000 car into the far reaches of the solar system.

Musk said he wanted to participate in a space race because “races are exciting” and that while strapping his car to a rocket may be “silly and fun … silly and fun things are important”. Thus, anyone who mentions the colossal waste the project involves, or the various social uses to which these resources could be put, can be dismissed as a killjoy.

Yeah, Buzz Killington, you are a killjoy. Because those “Syrian Refugees” you virtue signal about in your piece were going to be in exactly the same situation if Elon Musk didn’t fire off his rocket. And as for income inequality, the socialism you advocate levels it by making 99% of the populations of Cuba, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe miserably impoverished while the political elite are billionaires. You sure don’t seem to have a problem with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Robert Mugabe being billionaires.

I will agree with Buzz Killington on one point, though.

Musk’s empire is fueled by billions of dollars in government subsidies. The Los Angeles Times revealed in 2015 that Musk’s companies benefitted from “grants, tax breaks, factory construction, discounted loans and environmental credits”, plus the tax credits and rebates that are granted to consumers for buying his products.

The average household income of a Tesla purchaser is in the hundreds of thousands, yet the federal government pays people $7,500 to buy them through tax credits, and many states offer their own cash handouts. Because we’re all giving Elon Musk money, what he chooses to do with that money is very much our business.

And just where do Elon Musk’s tax breaks and payouts come from? Leftists who felt the need to virtue-signal about concern for the environment by creating those very policies. You guys hate the free market and were convinced it would never lead to your Green Socialist Utopia. So, you guys… YOU GUYS… created the policies that diverted taxpayer funds into Elon Musk’s bank account. But that was okay, because Environmentalism is your secular religion; and you have no problem with the State supporting that.

As she neared the end of her second hour (of her rant), Pelosi said she considered asking the House to pray for Dreamers all day.

“During the night when I was thinking and praying so hard about our Dreamers, I thought, maybe we should just pray all day on the floor of Congress,” she said.

“Maybe I should bring my rosary blessed by the pope … his holiness, Pope Francis, or the one before that, Benedict,” she added. “I have the honor and privilege of receiving rosaries blessed by several popes in my lifetime.”

One notes that this woman has repeatedly voted in the House to ensure that late-term abortions are legal and, if possible, taxpayer-funded.

Needless to say, any time a Republican says “God Bless America,” the left goes into paroxysms about “theocracy.” But leftists want the USA overrun by third-world migrants and, besides, they know that Pelosi’s professed faith is completely insincere. So, she gets a pass.

Some have noted that Democrats have never hijacked the legislative process in order to advocate for working class Americans, or veterans. Nope, the Democrats reserve their concerns for illegal immigrants and, before that, criminal thugs who get shot by police while committing crimes.

By the way, a Roman Catholic bishop last week effusively praised the Chinese Government as “those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the (Roman Catholic) Church.” I am not making this up.